1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector. More particularly, the present invention relates to an audio jack connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the big advances in technologies, electronic products are designed with lightweight and streamline bodies so that they can be carried around with ease. For example, recent electronic products including the MP3, the mobile phones and the personal digital assistants (PDA) all follow this trend. Moreover, for most electronic products' users, the convenience of listening to voice data through an earphone has almost become essential. Therefore, most electronic products have an audio jack connector disposed thereon for receiving the audio plug of an earphone. With this audio jack connector, the user can listen to the audio signals delivered through the electronic product.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing all the major components of a conventional audio jack connector. FIG. 2 is a bottom view of a conventional audio jack connector. FIG. 3 is a bottom cross-sectional view of a conventional audio jack connector. As shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, the conventional audio jack connector 100 includes a first contact terminal 110, a second contact terminal 120, a third contact terminal 130, a fourth contact terminal 140, a first fixing plate 150, a second fixing plate 160 and an insulating housing 170. The insulating housing 170 has a chamber 172 and a plurality of grooves 174 (five are shown in FIG. 2). The grooves 174 are disposed on the sidewalls of the chamber 172 and connected through the chamber 172. The first contact terminal 110, the second contact terminal 120 and the third contact terminal 130 are disposed in a corresponding groove 174 respectively. The first fixing plate 150 and the second fixing plate 160 are similarly disposed in a corresponding groove 174 for fixing the first contact terminal 110 and the second contact terminal 120 respectively.
The conventional fourth contact terminal 140 is a ‘π’-shaped spring plate with each side having a latching groove 142. Each latching groove 142 latches with a latching block 176 on the surface of the insulating housing 170 (only one side is shown in FIG. 1) so that the fourth contact terminal 140 can lock tightly to the insulating housing 170. In addition, the fourth contact terminal 140 also has a spring plate portion 144. The spring plate portion 144 extends from an opening 178 on the insulating housing 170 into the chamber 172. Therefore, when the audio plug (not shown) of an earphone is plugged into the chamber 172 of an audio jack connector 100 of an electronic product, the contact terminals 110, 120, 130 and 140 are electrically connected to the audio plug (not shown). Moreover, the aforementioned contact terminals 110, 120, 130 and 140 are all electrically connected to an audio circuit board (not shown) inside the electronic product so that a user can listen to the audio information provided by the electronic product through the earphone.
In order to match the structural design of the conventional audio jack connector, some contact terminals are directly disposed in their respective grooves (like the first contact terminal, the second contact terminal and the third contact terminal). However, the contact terminals with a latching groove are directly latched to the insulating housing (like the fourth contact terminal). Therefore, the conventional design demands a longer period to assemble each and every one contact terminal to the insulating housing. In other words, the conventional audio jack connector has a higher production cost.
The assembling of the fourth contact terminal to the insulating housing of a conventional audio jack connector differs from other contact terminals (the fourth contact terminal needs to latch onto a latching block on the surface of the insulating housing). When the latching groove on the contact terminal or the latching block on the insulating housing is not manufactured precisely enough, the fourth contact terminal will not latch accurately to the insulating housing. As a result, the height of the connecting lead of the fourth contact terminal may differ from the other contact terminals. In other words, the connecting leads of the contact terminals of the audio jack connector will have non-uniform planarity. When the audio jack connector is joined to a circuit board inside the electronic product, some of the terminal leads may not form an effective electrical connection with the circuit board so that the signal quality may be adversely affected.